The most frustrating heist

My little detour took a little more time than I was expecting. I take some time to reorient myself, assisted by my rangers skills. Still, I only make my way back to that isolated cabin after an early autumn sundown. The residents have lit lights within, and the horse that I find in the stable has fallen asleep with some blankets. I’m once again impressed with how clean the stable floor is, it’s almost like there wasn’t a living horse literally sleeping right there.

I once again make my way across the lawn to the back door. The redigestion of my coagulated mass is much more bearable after eating, so the sludge bane proves less of an obstacle than before. I subtly squish myself inside the keyhole, and I hear nothing on the side of the house I enter. The kitchen is quiet, though it feels particularly warm as I pass through it. I hear sounds coming from the dining room as if three or four people are eating without conversation. The cutlery clinks loudly at semi-regular intervals. Hopefully everyone’s chatty around the dinner table, I genuinely do not want to interrupt their meal.

I begin to go up the hall, then stop. Although I hear three people eating through the open archway, no one is talking. Maybe I’m just projecting, but I feel like you could cut this awkward silence with a knife. There’s no way I can just waltz right past. I hope I won’t have to stake this place out. Maybe I could just go around to the front? I would have to go along that grody lawn and reabsorb myself. I try to slide up and around the doorway, as I prefer not to go outside if I can avoid it. It’s not a feasible plan.

I catch a lucky break as I mull over my options. Someone in the dining room speaks up. Probably that girl who led me here.

“So, daddy, did you have a good trip to the market today? What did you get while you were out?”

“Well,” replies a masculine voice, “I really only stopped by the relay offices today. I was busy all day with Rithard, and I didn’t get a chance to hit the streets. I just had to go through a lot of paperwork.”

Geeze, that sounds like he could be her actual dad. Isn’t she a little old to be calling him daddy? I mean, I guess it’s a term of endearment. This probably just proves I have a dirty mind, but it still takes me off guard. They’re probably a family, and I probably shouldn’t be judging what nicknames they give each other. Not even the ones I find weird.

“Oh, that’s a shame. I was thinking you might have picked up a gift for Briena. You always get such nice gifts, she definitely needs one.“ The young lady continued.

“Well, more than gifts, I was able to send someone to get some treats. Maybe we can have those for dessert? I have them in this box here, help yourselves.”

With that, I take my chances sliding past the open doorway. It’s not polite to eavesdrop after all. Also, if these people eat dessert as quietly as they eat their meal, I’ll be bored out of my mind.

The rest of the house is open and uninhabited, and my journey back up to the office goes as smoothly as one can hope for. The destination, however, disappoints me. Last time I visited the office, the desk was the most interesting feature. The desk is now clean. Nothing is sitting out, not even a random wine glass left on one of the cabinets. I mean, day drinking doesn’t seem to be in the wheelhouse for these folks, my point is how tidy the room is. If it gets any cleaner it will look like some sort of display. I slide up to the desk and check the drawers. Surprisingly, they are locked.

Who locks the drawers on a desk in a remote cabin in the woods? I suppose the freakish paranoia is justified by yours truly, but it still frustrates me. The thing I want most is the spell book, and I am sure to find it in these drawers. I last saw the book on this desk, and I will read that book. Otherwise I’ll keep coming back here until I can get something that will let me live better than a random animal.

I try to slide into the drawers, and it hardly works. The drawer is tight, and the lock is so tiny. There’s only enough room for me to wiggle in a little feeler, it’s not even a finger wide. The lock downstairs gives me like a two-inch diameter. Here I can only feel around the desk, maybe mess around with some tacks inside it. I find exactly that, as well as some pencils and office utensils. I slide around, trying to suss out which drawer holds a magical spellbook.

Turns out, it’s probably in the bottom right drawer. It’s one of those extra deep drawers, and it has a bunch of other sorted files in it. I try to run my feeler over the book. I think I can read it, and I pry open the cover in its little cramped space to test that theory. On what I think is the first page I find what I think is a table of contents. No title page? Well, why waste the paper, am I right? But reading it in such a cramped space is difficult, even if it is made possible by my taste-oriented senses. I start going down the list. It takes a minute, and I wonder if I’m even reading it right. They don’t seem to be in any particular order, and I really don’t think anyone needs “Reacquire Cleaning Supplies”. What would that spell do anyway, let you use the same bit of bleach repeatedly? I don’t think I’d ever need this.

It must take me a while to rifle through all of this, because the next thing that I know, someone’s coming up the stairs. I shove myself up against the bottom of the desk. Once again, I find myself cramped up trying to avoid getting caught where I shouldn’t be. I hear one person’s footsteps slowly plodding their way down the hall before stopping. I still feel like a nervous wreck. There’s three people in this house, and if one is sleeping now, why not the whole lot? I stay plastered to the underside of the desk.

A while longer passes. I try to stay calm. Was I always this nervous of a wreck when it came to getting caught? Well, there’s not that much use wondering now. If I get caught, I’ll save myself. That said, I do not want to be caught.

Eventually I hear two people walking up the stairs. Thankfully both walk past, probably heading to that bedroom. Only when I’m sure neither is coming back up the hall do I gingerly move to keep reading that book, locked away as it is.

This is probably the best I have felt all day. It’s gotten dark, I’m inside, and with everyone asleep no one is likely to walk in on me. It would almost be a relaxing read through this table of contents if it weren’t for the awkward hoop I had to jump through to read it. I consider taking the time to pick the lock, but in the end I decide the way I’m doing this isn’t broken, so I shouldn’t fix it.

And just as I decide to commit, I’m interrupted again. Not by footsteps, but by a quick little click. Instead of scurrying away, I tense all the way up. The door to his office just opened, and now I need to quickly yet deliberately hide myself back under this desk. I don’t know why anyone is here, but I’ll say it one more time: I do not want to be caught.

I am so glad to hear, then, the intruder moving just as slowly as I am. I slide under the desk, and they only cross half of the distance to the desk. It seems like they’re coming toward the desk as well. It’s setting my nerves on edge just thinking about it. It only gets worse as this creeper walks up to the chair and settles into it with a relieved sigh.